“The governor and legislative leaders have shown they are hearing the voices of educators and parents who have been speaking out for their students and children in our state’s schools. We have been calling for just the sort of course correction recommended yesterday to the Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC).
“Our political leaders have recognized that teachers, classroom support staff and administrators need greater flexibility in adapting to changes in the way we are now educating our state’s students. As the governor and legislative leaders said in their joint letter:
“‘Too much change all at once impedes teachers’ ability to be effective in their classrooms. Teachers and administrators understandably are feeling burdened and together we must take action to relieve this pressure.’
“We couldn’t agree more. And we believe that the options recommended and adopted today by PEAC will empower teachers to be more effective in the classroom and enable administrators to be more efficient in assessing their performance.
“Let’s be clear; we have not been saying ‘no’ to student assessments or teacher evaluations. We have been saying we need a moratorium on high stakes consequences during the transition to a new approach to teaching our children in order to get the implementation right.
“All our students deserve a quality education; their opportunities to learn should not be compromised during this transition. And our teachers need appropriate training, professional development and to be engaged in developing classroom curriculum during this time
“With PEAC’s approval of new flexibility options, our state’s children will be the primary beneficiaries of this course correction.”
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AFT Connecticut represents more than 29,000 professionals across the state, including PreK-12 teachers, paraeducators and education support personnel in 29 local and regional school districts. Follow the union on Facebook at www.facebook.com/aftct.
